Jammu and Kashmir has the second highest unemployment rate in the country, according to the latest data of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
Infusing a breath of hope in the economy, the CMIE said that India’s unemployment rate has come down to 6.43% in September due to an increase in labour participation in the rural and urban areas amid harvest season.
The CMIE data suggests that India’s unemployment rate increased to one-year high of 8.3% as employment sequentially fell by 2 million to 394.6 million.
“In September, the unemployment rate has fallen significantly with an increase in labour participation in both urban and rural areas,” CMIE managing director Mahesh Vyas said on Saturday.
According to CMIE data, the unemployment rate in India’s rural areas came down to 5.84% in September from 7.68% in August, while it fell to 7.70% against 9.57% in the previous month in the urban areas.
Vyas said that the increase of 8 million people in labour participation is a sign that the economy of the country is doing well.
The CMIE data suggests that the unemployment rate was the highest in Rajasthan at 23.8% in September, followed by Jammu and Kashmir at 23.2%, Haryana at 22.9%, Tripura at 17%, Jharkhand at 12.2% and Bihar at 11.4%.
The unemployment was the lowest in Chhattisgarh at 0.1% in September, followed by Assam at 0.4%, Uttrakhand at 0.5%, Madhya Pradesh at 0.9%, Gujarat at 1.6%, Meghalaya at 2.3% and Odisha at 2.9%, the data showed.
The unemployment rate surged to a one-year high in August as erratic rainfall, which impacted sowing activities, affected employment in rural India. The urban unemployment rate shot up to 9.6% and the rural unemployment rate also increased to 7.7% in August.